No Contest

by Alfie Kohn

Because No Contest was assigned reading for my Social Problems class, I read it differently than I would have if I just picked it up. We were required to write a 3-5 page essay discussing a specific aspect of the book or a general thesis of Kohn’s that we would then agree or disagree with. This meant that I was looking for something to babble on about – but something I could babble interestedly about.
 
Part of what Kohn says is that competitive sports and games are actually less fun than non-competitive sports and games, and the reason is that all motivation becomes extrinsic. You play to win. In cooperative games, the point of playing is the pleasure of playing – not a reward at the end. I thought this was Kohn’s most well-supported claim, and the most interesting one. Some of the other chapters were cluttered and overly academic, which made them hard to get through. But I think the book is worth taking a look at.

Hard Times

by Charles Dickens

Supposedly I read this in high school. What I mean by that is that I have a vague recollection of borrowing the book from a friend and reading it for an English class. The only thing I really remembered from the book was something about a circus – and, since that occurs within the first 25 pages, I doubt I read much beyond that.

But we read it for my Intro to Sociology class to take a look at the changing class makeup of England during the Industrial Revolution. I liked that we used the book to understand the social effects of industrialization, and it was worked nicely into our lecture material. What’s more, I found Dickens to be a very amusing author; I couldn’t understand why my classmates complained that the book was boring – they must have missed all the humor. Now I’ve bought a copy of Oliver Twist in hopes that it will be just as good.